S’pore at the AFF Suzuki Cup: Three reasons to be optimistic
COMMENT
Going into the ninth edition of the AFF Football Championship (Suzuki Cup for sponsorship reasons), Singapore fans can be forgiven to feel a little pessimistic about the chances of the team.
The Lions crashed out of the Group Stage of the last edition meekly, recording only a narrow victory over Myanmar.
Also, in the two years since that disappointing exit, the Lions' form had been anything but impressive.
In their attempt to qualify for the 2014 World Cup, Singapore had lost all six matches in the Third Round Group Stage — including a very humbling 7-1 loss to Iraq in February this year.
All in all, the Lions have played 22 matches since the last Suzuki Cup and had only registered seven wins. Several of those victories are also over football minnows like India, Pakistan and Maldives, all of which are consistently ranked below Singapore in the FIFA World Rankings.
However, there are (always) reasons to be optimistic … here are just the three of them:
Our Talisman
Every great team needs a talisman — a player whom the team can rely on when the odds are stacked heavily against them. The Lions were clearly missing a player of such stature in the last tournament.
This year, Singapore can hope that our prodigal son Hariss Harun can finally fulfil all the promises and step up to be the key player of the team.
It is hard to imagine, but this will be only Hariss' first taste of AFF Football Championship. Despite making his international debut at the tender age of 16 back in 2007, he had missed the previous few tournaments because of injuries and other personal issues.
After a sterling season with LionsXII where he cemented his reputation as one of the top midfielders in the region, he will no doubt be hungry for a good showing here.
His versatility will also be key over the course of the tournament. His ability to play comfortably in midfield or as a center-back will prove very useful for the team over the course of a tournament, where suspensions and injuries are inevitable.
His hat-trick for LionsXII against Sabah in a Malaysian Super League match this season also shows that if required, he can add firepower to the attack.
Our Head-to-Head Record
Singapore is drawn in Group B of the competition to face hosts Malaysia, Indonesia and Laos.
In terms of FIFA ranking, very little separate us, the Malaysians and the Indonesians — we are all ranked in the 160s region. Laos is a little behind at 177th according to the latest charts.
It is interesting, however, to note that the Lions have enjoyed a winning record against all these three teams since 2000.
We have played Malaysia most often in the past 12 years, a total of 16 times. The Lions have won five of those matches while the Harimaus have won four.
We are undefeated against Indonesia in the past 12 years — winning six out of nine meetings. In fact, Indonesia have not beaten us since 1997 in all competitions — friendlies or otherwise.
The Lions also enjoy a very overwhelming record against the Laotians. We have played them on four occasions (all in the AFF Championships) and won four times. In 2007, Singapore trounced Laos 11-0 (a standing record), with striker Noh Alam Shah bagging seven goals (also a record). Overall, we enjoy a goal difference of +19 against Laos.
Some may argue that history means nothing when two teams meet, but looking beyond the randomness of statistics, there is a possibility of finding differences in playing styles and mentalities to explain our very positive recent record against these three other teams.
Our Siege Mentality
Our national football team and the Football Association of Singapore (FAS) had been under a lot of pressure from both fans and the media since the last Suzuki Cup.
There were constructive comments — highlighting an ageing national team that still relies heavily on Aleksandar Duric and the failure of the S-League to produce a generation of top footballers.
There were also a lot of misdirected criticisms directed at the lack of effort of some players, the now defunct Goal 2010 project and the Foreign Talent Scheme.
National coach Raddy Avramovic also received much flak for his failures in the past couple of years, drawing unwanted attention to his $300,000++ per annum pay package. It was as if his achievements of winning two AFF Football Championships (2004 and 2007) were all forgotten.
All the pressure and the media negativity would naturally develop a sense of siege mentality in the Lions' camp.
It is almost impossible to quantitatively correlated mentality to sporting results, but we all witnessed how top coaches like Jose Mourinho cleverly leverages on the power of mentality to rally their teams.
Perhaps all these can force the Lions to draw on their innate and insatiable desire to prove doubters wrong and come out fighting for glory in this tournament.
